The anatomy of a lung includes multiple airways. As a result of certain genetic and/or environmental conditions, an airway may become fully or partially obstructed, resulting in an airway disease such as emphysema, bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and asthma. Certain obstructive airway diseases, including, but not limited to, COPD and asthma, are reversible. Treatments have accordingly been designed in order to reverse the obstruction of airways caused by these diseases.
One treatment option includes management of the obstructive airway diseases via pharmaceuticals. For example, in a patient with asthma, inflammation and swelling of the airways may be reversed through the use of short-acting bronchodilators, long-acting bronchodilators, and/or anti-inflammatories. Pharmaceuticals, however, are not always a desirable treatment option because in many cases they do not produce permanent results.
Accordingly, more permanent/longer-lasting treatment options have been developed in the form of energy delivery systems for reversing obstruction of airways. Such systems may include a delivery device having an energy emitting portion including one or more energy conducting elements. The one or more energy conducting elements may be designed to contact an airway of a lung to deliver energy at a desired intensity for a period of time that allows for the smooth muscle tissue of the airway to be altered and/or ablated.
Some systems may control tissue treatment by monitoring one or more parameters of the tissue. For example, some systems may additionally include one or more thermocouples that continuously or intermittently monitor the temperature of the treated tissue. When the temperature of the tissue is raised beyond a temperature threshold, the treatment may be terminated.
These systems, while effective for their intended purpose, may not prevent overtreatment during the treatment procedure (i.e., treatment of adjacent tissue and/or anatomical structures). Indeed, these systems may resume treatment of the targeted tissue after the temperature of the tissue drops below a threshold temperature when the tissue has been sufficiently altered and/or ablated.
Furthermore, the one or more thermocouples may add to the overall cost of manufacturing the energy delivery devices. While the cost may be less of an issue with reusable energy delivery devices where the cost can be amortized due to repeated usage, this cost may be high in the case of disposable energy delivery devices.
Therefore, there is a need for alternative systems and methods for treating tissue and monitoring tissue treatment.